The Glade 4.0

Sooooo, this young man is wondering if any of my fellow Gladers have ever visited Tokyo before? At the beginning of March, my best friend and I will be going there for a weeks long visit. We have our plane tickets booked (well he has his, I'll be jumpseating), so all thats left to plan is....well everything!

Many people have said that Tokyo and Japan can be a difficult place to travel as an English-only speaker without some sort of a local guide. We were aware of this before deciding on Tokyo, but it turns out I have a semi-friend from University who has been living in Tokyo for the past 2 years there, and my travel buddy also has someone he knew from high school there. So while we will have some sort of local connection, I'm not counting on them being around for the whole week. Have any of you traveled there without know Japanese? Without have a guide? We were joking about that iphone app on the commercial where you tap on a common phrase and it says it in Japanese thru the speaker. As lame as that sounds, we might end up having to use it haha.

For those of you who have been there, any suggestions on places to go? Sights to see? Out of town places to day trip to? I bought Lonely Planet guide for Tokyo (the same series I bought for London, New York and Rome which I've really enjoyed / found very useful) to give us some ideas on where to go, but people's personal experiences would be much appreciated. We will be there 7 days and 6 nights, so I imagine there will be a bit extra time to see something outside of the city proper.

I think we're going to end up staying at a hostel somewheres in the downtown area, but again, still not 100% sure on where would be a good idea to centralize ourselves.

Anyways, I'm just looking for any suggestions or tips from you all, even if you haven't been there before. I'm doing a lot more planning for this trip than my previous ones because of the language-gap and having a friend with me this time who hasn't traveled very much, so I think he's a bit nervous visiting so foreign a city. But in the end its going to be a freakin' blast and I can't wait to see all the craziness Japan has to offer

p.s. I've asked my Dad to cook a couple chopstick-requiring meals when I get home next week so I can start practicing using them

Go to the Tsukiji fish market, and the Imperial palace. Those are my suggestions from a day layover there. Do the fish market at the crack of omigod - something like 90% of Tokyo's fresh fish moves through there between 5am & 8am daily. See Akihabara (electronics district), and find some cold sake - that's apparently the really good stuff there. And I didn't have much trouble as an English-only speaker. Challenge, but it worked.

Have fun! I soooo want to go back.

I don't know how much has changed since these articles came out, but it's something to keep in mind.

Using the iPhone abroad


iPhone international data charge warning: Data access can occur involuntarily

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

You could probably trust the inhabitants of Tokyo with your newborn child, but while you're in that hostel, make sure you lock everything up if it's not on your person.

Never been, but I want to go badly -_-

Let me see if I can get the powerpoint presentation one of the people who works at my anime con uses for his panel (Used to be called "A student's guide to Japan" but he changed the name to... something else, since he's no longer a student). He lives there full time, working as a photographer for J-Rock/Punk bands lol

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A friend of mine who knows no Japanese past a few key words is moving to Tokyo in 2 days. He's going to be living there through the end of March. In a few weeks I might have some helpful information to pass along in terms of what he found troublesome as well as some neat places to visit over the course of a week's time. :p

That would be very helpful Crim and Noggel, thank you!

I heard the fish market was definitely a very cool place to visit, I'm pretty excited to see it because that is a unique sort of "attraction" you won't see at many cities!

I lived in Japan for a couple years (and I just got my place in Okinawa a couple weeks ago), I thought the train system wasn't too hard to navigate, but I can't remember the name of the big train hub in Tokyo. All the place names on the maps and signs are in roman characters as well as kanji, so you should be ok. Otherwise, just stand around looking confused at the signs and someone will come up and practice their English on you. Just give them your money and tell them where you're going and they'll work the ticket machine for you . Sometimes they came up to help me when I wasn't confused, but they have the roman characters at a weird angle and I always had a hard time reading them. Maybe I always look confused...

You might want to look into taking a bullet train to somewhere else for the day and check Kyoto or Hiroshima out. I think that'd depend heavily on if you would have enough time to take the train, do something, and then take it back. So that might not be an option. I think Kyoto and Hiroshima are probably too far away for a day trip, but there might be something that isn't if you look.

I'd recommend climbing Mt. Fuji, but I don't remember what time of the year it's open for climbers. It gets kind of cold at the top, even during the summer. Depending on the weather, it could kind of suck. And don't get lost by going down the wrong side when you get to the top! It took me about eight hours to get to the top as well, so it's not an easy climb.

Akihabara has has lots of cool electronics/games/etc shops. There are also some sweet arcades, so if you want to get your *** kicked by Japanese kids, that's the place to be.

Roppongi is a shopping district, but it also has clubs/bars as well if that is your thing.

I may think of something else, it's been a few years. Pick up a survival language book and speak poorly in a Texan accent.

Aren't you in the .mil El? The New Sano hotel is pretty nice, or so I hear.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

It's one of those "will stay with me forever" places for me. I've been to ~10 countries in the last 15 years (thanks to work),many of them 5-10x each, and while there are memorable moments & places from each of them, Tsukiji is up near the top. Like climbing the Dom in Cologne, or experiencing the Sistine Chapel. I hope that someday I'll be able to get my wife & kids over there to share it.

Pm sent

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Thanks for the info, forgot about the thread for a few days.

I definitely had the "stand around and confused" look going on in Rome hehe. Some nice young lady came up and asked me where I was going and worked the thing, but then she asked for somethign afterwards haha. Kinda figured it would happen, but she was nice enough so I didn't mind.

I looked into Mt. Fuji but it's only fully open to climbers in the summer months, and its closed when we go there in March. Oh well, another time But thank you for the suggestion!

No I am not in the military. I work 2 weeks on 2 weeks off so thats why I'm able to take all these cheap trips.




Thank you very much Crim